Central Pennsylvania's newest public garden
is a fitting way to remember fallen soldiers and their families this Memorial
Day.

The Veterans Memorial Gold Star Healing and
Peace Garden is a tree-lined, flower-filled, circular garden about half the
size of a football field, located in York's Veterans Memorial Park near York Catholic
High School.

Not quite a year old, it's laid out with a
bubbling fountain in the center and black granite walls engraved with the names
of Pennsylvania soldiers killed while serving.

The garden's founder – Cherriney Kondor of
Hellam Twp. – says it's both a place to honor fallen soldiers as well as a
healing refuge for the loved ones they've left behind.

Kondor lost her oldest son, Army Spec.
Martin W. Kondor, in April 2004 when an improvised bomb went off while Martin
was serving in Iraq.

"When you lose a son, you have this pain,
and you have this energy," says Kondor. "What are you going to do with it? It
can become this big, black lump that consumes you from the inside, or you can
do something with it."

At the time, Kondor owned an advertising
company and was running what was then the Mid-Atlantic Garden Show (now the
Pennsylvania Garden Show of York).

Flowers seemed a natural way to counteract
the pain.

She began doodling ideas on napkins and
eventually came up with the basis of the Gold Star Garden.

This is no small patch of red, white and
blue flowers.

Designed by York architect Frank Dittenhafer
of Murphy and Dittenhafer and Baltimore landscape architect Scott Rykiel of
Mahan Rykiel Associates, this garden is a living monument framed in paved
paths, black granite walls, two water features and what will grow into a tunnel
of pleached hornbeam trees modeled after one at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington.

The hornbeam planting circles around the
sides and back of the garden, and a gravel path leads through it.

The inner part of the garden is shaped like
a star with each of its five paved points reaching out to the hornbeam tunnel
and creating "rooms" between the points.

View full sizeThe heart of the Gold Star Garden are color-themed rooms that represent core U.S. Armed Forces values.George Weigel

Each room has its own flower color that
corresponds to a core value or character trait emphasized by the U.S. Armed
Forces.

The red room, for example, is themed around
courage and is planted with red daylilies, 'Paprika' yarrow, Japanese
bloodgrass and red phlox.

The green room represents healing and is
planted with hosta, 'Limelight' hydrangeas, sedge grass and coralbells.

And the central fountain – where water
bubbles up from a circular millstone – represents honor with white petunias and
white geraniums. (Orange represents duty and service, yellow represents
integrity and remembrance, and purple represents valor.)

Most everything in this garden is symbolic.

The star shape ties into American Gold Star
Mothers Inc., which is an organization for families who have lost sons and
daughters serving in the military.

"It's the club nobody wants to be in," says
Kondor, who gained solace by joining Gold Star Mothers after Martin was killed.

"This is to honor all vets and to remember
the Pennsylvania fallen in the war of terror," says Kondor, "but it's also for
the living. It's a tool of healing for people trying to find their individual
peace.

"I hope people come through here and enjoy
it. If you have a loved one you've lost, it's a great way to celebrate their
life."

Kondor adds that the garden isn't just for
families of soldiers.
"We all have stuff going on," she
says. "This is a way to get grounded and have some peace. Some people come
quietly just to look. Others go to a specific spot on the wall because they're
looking for somebody."

Although Kondor was the driving force behind
the garden, it's really the product of the work of hundreds of people.

Susan Byrnes, founder of York's Susan P.
Byrnes Health Education Center, was one of the first to reach out to turn the
garden from idea into reality. She's still one of the officers of the
non-profit board that owns and maintains the garden.

The city of York donated the park land on
which the garden sits, numerous landscapers donated their services to build it,
and hundreds of others donated money to pay for this almost entirely
private-funded memorial.

"It's a million-dollar project when you add
the land and everything," Kondor says.

Everything is paid but the last $75,000 –
plus about $10,000 per year needed for annual upkeep and plant replacements.

More details on donations and other
fund-raisers (such as memorial bricks and benches) are posted on the garden's
web site at www.goldstargarden.com.

The garden itself is free and open daily
dawn to dusk.

It's located about 2 miles off the Mt. Rose
exit of I-83 at 1000 Vander Ave., between the York City Ice Arena and Bob
Hoffman Stadium.

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